You have the choice of either getting on board and learning the new technology or being left behind. For aquatics professionals, the imperative is stronger today than at almost any other time.

When I was growing up, I used to love poring over the
pages of Popular Science. The covers would always get me
with provocative headlines: “Flying Cars in Your
Lifetime” or “Humans Living on Moon by
Year 2000.”

The articles themselves always quoted experts who
assured me that the technology was already in place to make
any predictions come true. There were even cool
illustrations showing prototypes of the flying car or homes
on the moon. I couldn’t wait for the future.

My dad had a slightly more jaded view. Every time I
waved one of my future-predicting articles in front of him
or showed him one of the amazing illustrations of a
future-mobile, he just waved me off with a warning.
He’d read the same exact articles when he was a
kid. He was going to be living on the moon and driving a
flying car, too. Well, guess what? Cars still had tires and
people could barely live on Earth, let alone the moon.

Bottom line: I shouldn’t believe everything I
read.

Now I’m about the same age as my dad when he
gave me that advice, and I still drive a car with wheels
and the moon is just something in the sky. So why am I not
as jaded as my dad about future predictions? Why the
Popular Science-style cover of a futuristic pool?

I may not be living the life of the
“Jetsons,” but if anyone had told me as a
kid that I’d have a device the size of a deck of
cards in my pocket that could give me directions anywhere I
wanted; let me communicate with others whenever and
wherever I needed; and could give me info on weather,
movies and even stock options, I would have been less
likely to believe that than a flying car. But my cell phone
puts Captain Kirk’s communicator to shame.

The rapid pace of technology is changing
everyone’s life. And if it seems like
it’s accelerating, that’s because it is.
The phenomenon is called Moore’s Law and it states
that the number of transistors which can be placed
inexpensively on an integrated circuit has doubled
approximately every two years since 1965, according to
Wikipedia (a futuristic marvel in its own right). What that
means to you and me is that every year we get smaller, more
powerful computers, cell phones and gadgets.

That same advancement is affecting the aquatics
industry. You have the choice of either getting on board
and learning the new technology or being left behind. For
aquatics professionals, the imperative is stronger today
than at almost any other time. Technology can or will make
operations more efficient. That, in turn, will save money
— and very well could save your facility from the
budgetary chopping block. It is another way to Reinvent
Aquatics. (Register for our virtual conference at
aquaticsvirtualconf.com.)

Technologies such as RFID, underwater surveillance,
remote monitoring and biofiltration aren’t the
stuff of sci-fi. They’re here. Now. I hope
you’ll read more about them in this issue and
discover how they can help you today.

Whatever you believe about the future, there’s
one thing no one can deny: You can’t stop it from
arriving. It’s already here.